Defying Silent Night

When I started reading this article , I thought there were some sooper seekrit Jew-killing lyrics in Silent Night that I was previously unaware of.

Frankly, I think Judy Maltz is getting her panties in a twist over nothing.

It's the tone of the whole piece that gets me. Her neighbors decorate their houses. Big deal. She knew there weren't many Jews in the town and if she'd really done her homework, she could probably have moved to a more Jewish neighborhood, say near the synagogue she wrote about. No one in the neighborhood came calling with a demand that they string up lights or put a nativity scene on their front lawn.

OK, so she doesn't want her children to sing about Jesus the savior. Fine. Why the outrage over the dreidel song? It was an attempt to be inclusive. If she knows of more, better songs, why not suggest them to the PTO/music teacher/principal? And the religious songs came up during the community sing part of the program. Why not just sit those out? Or leave? Or don't go to the damn program in the first place?

She went to the principal, then the PTO. Fine. Here the principal went too far, overriding the PTO's decision to eliminate overt religious songs. This was wrong, but she paints everything with too broad a brush. The principal may have been an idiot but others were receptive to her wishes and yet her tone suggests that the whole town consists of a bunch of ignorant yokels cum anti-semites.

Check out the comments, too. Seems I'm not the only one who thinks Judy is making a tzimmes out of this non controversy.

What do you think?